Creative professionals

Sectors and activities in the CCI of Tijuana

The data obtained through the questionnaires distributed to creative professionals offer an overview of the sectors and activities linked to the cultural and creative industries of Tijuana. Two instruments were simultaneously administered: the long version of the questionnaire to be answered in 15 minutes and the express version of the questionnaire to be answered in 2 minutes.

The first instrument was answered by 47 participants, while 157 responses were obtained from the second. The extensive questionnaire made it possible to filter economic activity between companies and independent agents, while the express questionnaire made it easier for the participants to define the sector in which they carry out their activities, with the possibility of specifying services or specialties within their area. The results of the exercise are presented separately.

Based on the results of the extensive questionnaire, the registered sectors that feature most prominently are performing arts and shows and those relating to audiovisual production. In second place comes marketing, followed by visual and plastic arts and support services for cultural and creative industries. Also notable is the digital creative services sector.

Performing arts and shows

Audiovisual production

Marketing

Plastic and visual arts

Supporting services

Digital creative services

Music production and promotion

Architecture

Electronic and mechanical design

Handicrafts

Fashion

Graphic, digital or 3D design

Gastronomy

Notable within performing arts and shows are organizations dedicated to music performance and singing, as well as the production of musical or stage events. The audiovisual production sector, on the other hand, is mainly dedicated to production and filming, but also includes preproduction, screenwriting, and artistic creation, postproduction and editing.

Marketing organizations are engaged in advertising and content production as well as strategy and branding services, while the digital creative services sector offers digital marketing and software development services. It is worth noting that the visual and plastic arts sector primarily involves artistic production, although art trade, research and curatorship are also represented.

In the music production and promotion sector, sound recording studios are especially noteworthy, as is the organization of events, festivals, and concert tours. Lastly, support services for CCI include public relations, intellectual property and copyright, qualification and education, project management, and professional talent hunting.

Based on the express questionnaire aimed at creative professionals, we were able to identify the activities involved in the most prominent sectors. In addition to those already mentioned, the performing arts and shows sector is complemented with dance and acting. In visual and plastic arts, the category of other artistic expressions encompassed several answers. In the digital creative services sector, creatives highlighted the activities of multimedia design, digital marketing, video games, interactive and virtual reality (VR), and online content distribution. In audiovisual production, services like sound design, as well as location, casting and props, were mentioned. Graphic, digital or 3D design includes graphic design, photography, and video, as well as web development and digital applications (apps). Additionally, the music production and promotion sector features musical composition, live event production, postproduction of sound recordings, and growingly, online editing and streaming services.

Companies and independent professionals

The extensive questionnaire for creative professionals indicates that 53.95% of participants carry out economic activities as independent professionals while 46.05% do so as a company. Further, 40.43% are self-employed professionals, while 29.79% work in small companies (with up to 50 workers) and only 6.38% work in companies with over 50 workers.

In terms of total employed personnel (TEP) by age range, most heavily featured is the group between 25 and 35 years of age, followed by those aged between 35 and 44. Nine of the employees are full-time workers and only one is a volunteer or intern, while four are independent workers or freelancers.

Interregional linkages

Our findings show that 17.02% of CCI companies in Tijuana benefit from foreign investment, while 82.98% lack this. Inputs obtained abroad illustrate the cross-border dynamics of these companies, and these include education and mentoring, firstly, and then to a lesser extent, supplies and technology. At the same time, the services offered to the international market are associated primarily with demand-driven production, followed by design and ideation services, and then marketing and customer services.

Concerning collaboration with other organizations or companies, the participants report that 30% of entities with which they partner are local, 26% regional, 25% national, and 16.7% foreign. Only 2% do not collaborate with others. Altogether this shows the diverse nature of collaboration in the CCI.

Intersectoral linkages

It was found that the vast majority of respondents belong to the productive sector (58.70%), followed by the social sector (15.22%), academia (6.52%), and government (4.35%). Similarly, 15.22% indicated that they belonged to another sector, providing the following responses: cultural, independent-educational, art, and cultural-musical.

With the aim of gaining deeper insight into the type of interaction that occurs between sectors, six interaction options were established and the strength of this interaction was measured by sector. The options were talent exchange, knowledge exchange, commercial transactions, funding, regulation and standards, and joint development of products and services.

For talent exchange, it was found that there is most interaction with the academic sector (50%). In knowledge exchange, the most common sector is also academia (76.09%). For regulation and standards, the sector that sees the most interaction is the government sector (43.48%). Finally, for the category of joint development of products and services, the most common sector for interaction is the productive sector (67.39%).

Respondents were asked to note the sectors with which they were closely linked and had strong partnerships. The responses reveal a clear tendency to associate or collaborate with the academic sector (76.09%), followed by the social sector (69.57%), the productive sector (67.39%), and the government sector (54.35%). It is clear that collaboration occurs between sectors, since only 4.35% of those surveyed report not collaborating.

Specifically, collaboration with educational centers occurs more frequently to develop internal projects (56.52%), followed by collaboration in research and internships (52.17%), social service (39.13%), development and continuous improvement (23.91%), recruitment and hiring (21.74%), and funding or donations (13.04%).

Other types of collaboration were found to a lesser extent: development of workshops, qualification, and cultural presentations.